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2015-01

KlezCalifornia promotes and celebrates Yiddish culture in the San Francisco Bay Area

Please consider making a gift today to KlezCalifornia, your last chance to qualify for a 2014 tax deduction. We add enjoyment to your life with Yiddish-inspired culture, including wonderful klezmer music, which makes us all feel so happy and energized! We rely on you to sustain everything we do. Whether you give $18 or $1800, every donation makes a difference. It's easy! Click HEREto donate with a credit card right now or mail a check to KlezCalifornia, 1728 Allston Way, Berkeley CA 94703.

Special note if you are 70 1/2 or older: Through December 31, you may donate to KlezCalifornia directly from an IRA without having the distribution added to your adjusted gross income and this will count towards your required minimum distribution for 2014. Call us for more information or consult your tax advisor.

Our newest "thank you" gift for donors of $54 or more is "Live & Be Well," a celebration of Yiddish culture in America," by Richard F. Shepard and Vicki Gold Levi. This fascinating 192-page book describes hundreds of significant people, places, events, and ideas, from A to Z, through which Yiddish culture has affected American Jewish life. Learn about all four "thank you" gifts HERE

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KlezCalifornia offers a fond farewell to KlezKamp, the week-long immersion in Yiddish culture produced by Living Traditions for the past thirty years in New York's Catskill Mountains. An August article in the "Forward" about KlezKamp's final year (and mentioning KlezCalifornia!) is HERE

Thursday, January 8, 7:00pm, Chasing Portraits: A Great-granddaughter's Search for Her Lost Art Legacy, an illustrated presentation with Elizabeth Rynecki.

Moshe Rynecki (1881-1943) was an artist living in Poland at the outbreak of World War II. Concerned about preserving his paintings and sculptures, many of which depicted Jewish life in Warsaw between the wars, he distributed and hid roughly eight hundred paintings with gentile friends in and around the city. He perished in the Majdanek concentration camp.

After the War, his family recovered approximately one hundred and twenty hidden paintings. For more than twenty years, his great-granddaughter Elizabeth Rynecki has sought more paintings and details about her great-grandfather's lost work. Her presentation will include new information uncovered during her trip to Poland in the fall of 2014. Co-presented by KlezCalifornia. No charge. More info:415.567.3327, jewishcommunitylibrary.org.

Wednesday, January 7, 8:00pm, Yiddish Arts Trio House Concert. Suggested donation: $20. Reserve before January 4 to be guaranteed a seat. More info and reservations: concerts[at]InstantHarmony.com.

At a private home in MOUNTAIN VIEW

Sunday, January 11, 9:00-11:00am, Discussion of stories by Mendele Mocher S'forim (S.Y. Abramovitsch) and Sholem Alecheim (S. Rabinovitch), with Rabbi Janet Marder and Dr. Joyce Penn Moser. Part of five-session Explorations in Modern Jewish Literature. See also second session,February 8, below, in Coming in February. Suggested donation: $36 for the series (includes bagels, cream cheese, juice and coffee). More info: 650.493.4661, HERE

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At Congregation Beth Am, LOS ALTOS HILLS

Sunday, January 18, 3:00pm, Susan RoAne, The Mingling Maven. An interactive workshop for

anyone who has to mix and mingle in a room full of strangers. Find out why the author included a Yiddish glossary in her book, "How To Work A Room." Presented by Lehrhaus Judaica. No charge. More info: 415.845.6420, HERE

Saturday, January 24, 7:30pm, Jewish and Global Soul Music with Cantor Richard Kaplan. Songs of exultation, radical immanence, lament and deep ecumenism, music both tribally-rooted and world-centric, sung in Hebrew, Yiddish, Aramaic, English, Hindi, a bisl Latin or with no words at all. Light refreshments. Presented by the Jewish Music Festival. Tickets: $25. More info: 800.838.3006,HERE

Wanted: Accordionist who sings and perhaps plays guitar and/or piano. Should be familiar with Yiddish and Hebrew and be interested in working up some traditional and original music as duo and eventually more players for paying gigs. More info: Moish Estrin, mikelmaestro[at]yahoo.com.

Wanted: Klezmer musicians in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. Klezmer-loving family on California's North Coast wants to know who is playing klezmer in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties so we can discuss options for mutual learning, fun and support. Contact Jennifer atrefinnej[at]mcn.org.

Proverb of the month: A half-truth is a whole lie (A halber emes iz a gantser lign) (Thanks to Gale Kissin).

Coming in February

Sunday, February 8, 9:00-11:00am, Discussion of stories by Zalman Shneour and Edna Ferber, with Rabbi Janet Marder and Dr. Joyce Penn Moser. Part of five-session Explorations in Modern Jewish Literature. See also the first session, January 11, above. Suggested donation: $36 for the series (includes bagels, cream cheese, juice and coffee). More info: 650.493.4661, HERE.

At Congregation Beth Am, LOS ALTOS HILLS.

Thursday, February 12, 6:00-7:30pm, The Holocaust in Every Tongue: Which "Night" is Right: Yiddish, French or English and the Politics of Translation, presented by Naomi Seidman. Presented by Lehrhaus Judaica in conjunction with the exhibition Alive! A la vie! on the Children of Buchenwald. More info: 510.845.6420, HERE.

At San Francisco Public Library, SAN FRANCISCO

Saturday, February 21, 8:00 pm, To Everything There Is A Season: Cantor Sharon Bernstein with Carolyn Reiser, Karen Segal, and Judy Graboyes. Songs about day and night, weather, and food. Tickets: $10 members / $15 non-members. More info: 415.861.6932, shaarzahav.org

At Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, SAN FRANCISCO

Sunday, February 22, 1:00pm, Family History of Klezmer Music, with Gerry Tenney. Part of regular meeting of San Francisco Jewish Genealogical Society. No charge. More info: HERE.

At Oakland Family History Center, OAKLAND

Sunday, February 22nd, 3:00pm, A Song Tribute to the Jewish Chicken Ranchers of Petaluma, with the San Francisco Jewish Folk Chorus.

At a venue TBD, SONOMA COUNTY

Di Megileh of Itzik Manger, Thursday, February 26; Saturday, February 28;Sunday, March 1;Monday, March 2 (matinee); Tuesday, March 3. The New Yiddish Theater company reprises last year's sellout run of the hit Yiddish musical (fully supertitled in English).

At JCC East Bay, BERKELEY

Thursday, February 26 - Sunday, May 24, Letters to Afar (exhibit). Budapest-based artist Péter Forgács revisits amateur movies made by Jewish immigrants in the U.S. who visited their hometowns in Poland in the 1920-30s. Decades later, Forgács rewrites these "visual postcards" including music written by The Klezmatics. Tickets: Included in museum admission. More info: 415.655.7800, HERE.

Judy Kunofsky: In memory of my parents, Pauline and Israel Kunofsky. They ensured I learned Yiddish by sending me to the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring for four years, but then didn't speak to me in Yiddish. I will never know why.

Mitchell Shandling: Yes, KlezCalifornia so remarkably promotes our enjoyment of Yiddish-inspired culture. As well, my support commemorates my maternal bobeh/zeydeh, Keyleh and Leyzer Milkman, who provided the music of their heymish Litvak loshn in my childhood. I came into this world hearing these strong gentle Jews sing, but even more speak this beloved language which affords such rich pleasure and learning. As I learn to make my own music in mameloshn, I realize it could never be foreign, as I always remember their music. Zol s'lebn lebedig!

Support KlezCalifornia

With a gift of any amount to KlezCalifornia, you become a Contributing Member and you may post a message of up to 100 words on our web Honor Wall

for one year. This is a fine way to honor a loved one or teacher or to write about your own Yiddish heritage.

Donors of $54 (3 chai/khay) or more may choose one of four "thank you" gifts: NEW: "Live & Be Well, a celebration of Yiddish culture in America," by Richard F. Shepard and Vicki Gold Levi. This fascinating 192-page book describes hundreds of significant people, places, events, and ideas, from A to Z, through which Yiddish culture has affected American Jewish life. Also available: * "The OyWay," a 115-page book by Harvey Gotliffe, which helps you learn Yiddish expressions while engaging in meditative exercise. See theoyway.com